Operation Day's Work (ODW), a student run program, began in 1964 with the intent of providing foreign aid to developing countries. It has an elected student government which chooses a country for the year, and organizes the curriculum for a week of student learning. At the end of that week, the students of Norway work at a variety of jobs to raise money for a specific project in the designated country. Over the past thirty years, ODW has helped projects in 35 different countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In 1996, a quarter of a million students raised three million dollars for ODW.
Operation Day's Work began in the United States with eight pilot schools for the Campaign of 1998-1999. Thetford Academy was one of the original schools. ODW-USA has since grown to include 15 middle and high schools across the nation in 9 states.